Fionnán Sheahan

Jackie Jr.

works for Michael Healy-Ware.

Well, he did until now as his press advisor.

That job obviously goes as well because the minister is gone.

He wasn't responding to press queries about what way his father would be voting.

So I suppose there were kind of straws in the wind, but they kept the government guessing.

We knew that Danny was an issue because Danny had not been saying what way he was going to vote.

The assumption was, though, well, Michael is a minister.

He has to vote or else he walks.

He's decided to walk.

Yeah, a scalp for either the damage done to the government either by the fuel protesters or by Sinn Féin on a parliamentary level for putting down this motion.

There were complaints during the day that as a result of the motion, the government had put forward their own motion and this had resulted in leaders' questions.

I mean, ultimately, you know, you have to deal with the issue at hand, which is a no-confidence vote.

Questions don't matter.

So, yeah, it was Sinn Féin's parliamentary move to put down a motion of confidence.

That effectively put the pressure very heavily on the Healy Red Brother because they were going to have to come in today and vote... Physically vote.

Physically vote for the government.

They weren't going to be able to go missing.

And this is the result of it.

So, I mean, government arithmetic is not... You know, they're not in danger here.